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How CITIBIN’s Times Square Installation Grew From One Location to 10

Times Square generates 218,000 bags of trash yearly, and every one of them needs somewhere to go that isn’t the sidewalk. In 2022, the Times Square Alliance, the district’s Business Improvement District, became CITIBIN’s first municipal customer. The installation became a testing ground for adapting CITIBIN’s residential design for municipal use. That meant changing our approach to doors, siding, locks, and maintenance for use in the punishing streets of New York City. CITIBIN literally launched its municipal line in Times Square. Where it started The first Times Square installation was one location with four modules, using CITIBIN’s standard residential cladding and basic padlocks. It had no top doors, and the front doors had to be opened one at a time. The Times Square Alliance Clean Team had a lot of suggestions, as you see our COO Frank taking them in the photo. But when it’s Times Square as your client, the opinions of their sanitation staff really matter. We listened!    COO Frank Picarazzi taking in the feedback from sanitation staff, 2022 What Times Square taught us     Access turned out to matter most. Within six months, branded vinyl wraps replaced the original bamboo cladding, which let each unit carry the district’s identity and turned a trash enclosure into a billboard. Since then, CITIBIN has worked with the district’s workers on getting in easily, the thing that matters most to them.  Padlocks gave way to push-button locks on the top and front doors, which greatly improved the speed of access. A keypad replaces a routine of unlocking a padlock, opening the top, closing it, and re-shackling the lock. Now it takes a flip of the cap and a code. From Times Square, we learned that vinyl wraps are preferable to cladding boards for municipal use.  The dual-door feature came out of the same partnership. One door is the master, and its neighbor is subordinate, so a single code opens both. CITIBIN first tested it on a few modules in Times Square and estimates it cuts service time by roughly half.  CITIBINs can be found in 10 locations across Times Square Where it stands now In order to adapt to ever-expanding volume, Times Square relied on Citibin’s modularity and versatility. In consultation with Citibin’s service team, they systematically “broke up” an existing 8-module unit at 46th/8th into two “4-module” enclosures, and deployed each to two different spots that had experienced an uptick in foot traffic. And, in the resulting empty space, a NEW Citibin 8-module was installed at 46th/8th, loaded with Citibin’s latest municipal features, including push-button top and front doors, a branded vinyl wrap, and the dual-door mechanism. This flexibility allows TSA to nimbly meet their containerization goals, and brings their total fleet count to 56 modules across 10 locations.   Every CITIBIN municipal project begins with a walk-through of the site and a proposal that includes a rendering, and the modular system lets a location add or change units as its needs become clear. Districts, parks, and campuses can start at the municipal page to request a quote.